Chapter 74: Elf Noona 2
Chapter 74: Elf Noona 2
The Unfading Giant Tree's mansion was full of things I didn't know.
Which meant I got to ask her about this and that as we went, and she answered brightly—she seemed genuinely pleased that I was interested.
A house where vines replaced electrical wiring and flowers the size of human heads glowed instead of lamps. A building grown from plants from floor to ceiling—there was no end of things to gawk at.
Her explanations came in a clear, pretty voice and were easy to follow; they soaked right in.
We moved from the garden into the living room, down the hallway, up to the second floor. The Unfading Giant Tree was describing the plants on the walls and ceiling when she threw open a door without a second thought and stepped inside.
"So this bed here is made from cloud-cluster leaves, and..."
In front of the bed—a wooden frame woven with vines and filled with fluffy, soft-looking fibers—she froze stiff.
She'd apparently just remembered that she'd brought a boy far younger than herself into her own bedroom. The way her pale face heated up, visibly reddening like a kettle on a gas burner, was unmistakable.
"I mean, that is—"
"Cloud clusters? Looks like it'd tickle."
She appeared to be trying to shut the door and back out as naturally as possible, so I pushed right past her. The height difference meant her shoulder bumped against my chest as she stood in the doorway. She flinched away, startled by the unfamiliar contact, and I slipped inside the room.
'Whoa, it smells like grass.'
The living room and hallway had carried a faint floral scent, but inside this room the smell of fresh grass was thick. Maybe because the bed was made of plant material that had been pressed down over and over? Not a bad smell at all. It felt like spreading a mat in a park on a midsummer afternoon and lying there, drowsy.
"Ahh, so soft."
For something made of white plant fuzz, it felt softer than the microfiber blanket back in my room. I sat on the round bed, admiring it. When my eyes met hers—she was still standing stiffly with her arms half-raised—her face flushed all over again, whatever she was thinking. Of course she couldn't keep a poker face when a girl she had feelings for was sitting on her bed.
She wasn't nearly experienced enough for that—she was a hopeless innocent who'd just panicked over the brush of her shoulder against my chest.
"Come sit down. It'd be nice to talk here."
I patted the spot next to me, all innocence. The weird thing was, patting the bed with my palm didn't send any loose fluff flying. A blanket made of cloud clusters, huh. Maybe I should buy one for myself later. I'd worried a bed made of leaves might chafe your skin if you went at it, but that didn't seem to be a problem.
I looked at her with an encouraging gaze, and I saw her take a rough breath. How many times must she have hesitated before she walked over and sat beside me? We were pressed close enough that her shoulder touched mine.
'My height's definitely shrunk.'
From a sturdy build over 180cm, I'd dropped to somewhere around 175cm. I hadn't noticed it much while walking, but sitting right up against the Unfading Giant Tree, the difference was clear. The height gap had gone from about a head's difference to half a head—it felt a little more comfortable now.
The Unfading Giant Tree kept sneaking sidelong glances at me. I made sure to smile gently every time our eyes met, and it seemed to stimulate her bit by bit. Even if she had zero dating experience and didn't know what love was, she had to have figured out this much: I was very clearly treating her like a "kid."
Maybe because I'd stepped into her space, or because my body had changed the way she'd imagined, the feeling was unmistakable. I could even sense her inner thoughts vaguely. Was that because she, as an elf, was just too honest?
'She's a little annoyed at being treated like a child.'
While we sat on the bed chatting, I stroked her golden hair and touched her long, fluttering ears. Instead of enjoying the affectionate touch, she was feeling dissatisfied. That didn't mean she hated me or was genuinely angry. It was the kind of light irritation a kid feels when treated like a baby—closer to petulance than to rage.
Since I could half-read her reactions, there was no more hesitation in my actions.
"Nnnh, so soft~"
I cut off mid-conversation and flopped onto the bed. Stretching my arms overhead, I felt my T-shirt ride up and expose my navel—and at the same time, felt a stinging gaze bore into me.
'Oh, she's weighing her options. She's definitely weighing them.'
Now the Unfading Giant Tree was racking her brains over a boy sprawled out on her bed. Should she act like a kind noona and cover his stomach, or pretend she hadn't seen and enjoy the view? Cutting through that dilemma was the light irritation from earlier.
'Does this kid not even see me as a woman?'
'No matter how you look at it, I'm much older than him.'
'I'm not even being treated like a friend—being treated like a child is a bit...'
'They say humans judge by outward appearance; is that true for Dream Demons too?'
The cheerful chatter together was genuinely enjoyable. She'd lived a lonely life, same as I had. A man who'd holed up alone in a basement in an apocalyptic world and became a Constellation without ever knowing humanity's last refuge had fallen. And a woman who became a Constellation after the world outside the World Tree was destroyed, after the humans with her grew old and died and the boy she'd had a one-sided crush on killed himself.
Neither of us had died fighting monsters, demons, or aliens like other Constellations. We had in common that we'd both withered away in isolation. So even an ordinary, insignificant conversation must have been a joy. I remembered how my lips had trembled when I first became a Constellation and sent Han Ye-ji a single message.
But that was one thing, and this was another.
Imagine a teenage boy. An elf over a hundred years old, but in terms of behavior and mental state, she was right around that level—puberty-age high schooler. So a boy's house, and a girl from class who's known to be pretty comes over to hang out. But instead of staying in the living room, she walks right into his bedroom, sprawls out on her back showing her belly, keeps patting his shoulder and initiating skinship.
Any person with normal sexual urges would have to react. Just like now.
"...Why, is something up?"
I said it like I had no idea what was going on, but my eyes and mouth were definitely smirking. Her reaction alone told me everything.
"I'm, I'm also—"
She started to say something, then swallowed it, and quietly tugged the hem of my shirt back down.
"I'm a woman. And boys aren't supposed to let their stomachs get cold."
A woman, and a boy. I could read her thoughts in every one of those words. Still at the stage where desire hadn't quite overcome reason. The posture of a senior Constellation, and of an elf older than humans. A natural attitude for someone who'd always existed as a guiding figure. In that case, all I had to do was help desire win.
"Keep me warm? Mm, you're right... your hands are really warm."
She'd been holding the hem of my shirt and hesitating. I shot my arm out like a snake snatching a bird and seized her hand. I'd had kids touch my chest before, so... Well, saying it like that makes me sound like a fucking sex offender.
Sometimes the chastity norms of a gender-reversed world make me a little uneasy. Still, that kind of worry was nothing more than a fleeting concern that vanished the moment I took in the sight before me.
Her pale white fingers teased my abs like piano keys, tracing them in a hesitant, fumbling way.
"You're really..."
A giddy sigh, and white fingers like tiny icefish tickling me. The sight made me understand why that kind of word existed. Those fingers, so white they were almost translucent, would hold up even in comparison to pale, transparent fish.
Tap, tap, as the stimulation continued, the girl opened like petals unfurling from a bud—she was becoming a woman.
"Yeah, I'll keep you warm."
A full-fledged woman who knew how to reveal her desires. A soft palm tickled my stomach. Given her personality, I'd expected more hesitation, but once she'd made up her mind, she was surprisingly direct. Maybe because she'd already hesitated once and regretted it. It felt a little disrespectful, thinking of the elf boy who'd killed himself, but anyway, I enjoyed her touch.
"Hm, hm-hm— hmm."
Maybe they had the expression "a mother's touch is a healing touch" in this world, too, because she circled my stomach gently as if soothing a child. Me lying on my back, and her lying on her side, chin propped on one hand, looking down at me while stroking my stomach. Her loose clothes had shifted, and the valley of her breasts showed through. Small, but unmistakably there—the symbol of femininity gleamed even whiter than her white clothing and pulled my gaze. She took my gaze differently and smiled gently.
"Really, when you're like this, you look just like a little kid."
Before I could react, she embraced me. The scent of forest and a sweet body fragrance filled my nose. Startled by how forward she was being, I reached for her waist—and felt a hand patting my back. Slowly, pat-pat, like a noona putting a mischievous child to sleep.
"You know, your doppelganger... isn't it about time for it to disappear?"
"Huh?"
She gave my forehead a light peck, then sprang up from the bed. I'd thought she'd fallen for the temptation, but she'd pulled off a cute counterattack. That didn't mean the time had been meaningless—her face, trying hard to look composed, was red as could be.
'How does she pull off that act when her heart's pounding like that—'
"Bye-bye. See you next time~"
That smiling face as she saw me off, pretending nothing was wrong, pretending to be the mature one, was something else. I just stared at her blankly as if I'd been outplayed, and she grinned like a prankster. I'd lost track of time looking at all the fascinating plants and ended up walking right into that.
Did she know? That in that brief embrace, the emotions that had backflowed into me, the wildly racing heartbeat, had given away the whole truth. That no matter how well she kept her poker face, the embarrassment she felt was transmitted straight through to me.
Just like the way my height on the bed was shrinking little by little—I thought I understood her desires.